How they’d been dragged out to the beach on the hottest day of the summer was boggling most of their minds. The only one of them that hadn’t been practically melting on the spot was Peter, but even he was feeling kinda warm. However, when Thor had saw on TV that most midgardians went down to the water on days like this, he was insistent that they all take a trip down there. He only managed to drag three others out the door with him. Tony had been more than reluctant to go, but once the god had gotten Peter (who may or may not have wanted to see Thor shirtless) to come with, he had to. Pepper didn’t need much convincing- just a polite ask from Thor and some puppy-dog eyes from Pete and she was sold. After looking into which beach would be the least crowded, the four drove forty-five minutes down to the water.
Tony complained most of the way about how he could’ve been working in his cold lab right now instead of heading out into the blistering heat, but each one was short lived. Peter had tried to start a little in car game to help his pseudo-dad enjoy himself more, but it was too complicated to explain to Thor. Before the spider could get too into explaining the dynamics of punch buggy, they pulled into the parking lot along the boardwalk, gathering up their things from the car’s trunk, and finding a nice quiet slice of the sand whilst Happy went on a search for a parking spot. Peter and Thor carried most of their belongings, seeing how they were the ones with enhanced strength, and the Norse god compared Asgard to Midgard (in a positive way) throughout the walk.
Once they were all set up, Tony made sure that his kid had at least two layers of sunscreen on, despite the protests. “I don’t need sunscreen, Mr Stark. I’ll be fine,” Had been one of the defensive phrases as the other rubbed in a few of the white spots left on his face.
“Kid, you’re paler than a sheet. You’ll burn as red as your suit. Now come on, use the spray on your legs.”
Peter’s fanboy crush on Thor was painfully obvious, so why not be an extra embarrassing dad? That’s what good parents did after all, right? Well, he must’ve been doing something right, because Pepper was struggling not to laugh while applying her own.
“Stark, why are you covering the man of spider in that?”
“It’s called sunscreen, Point Break. Keeps him from burning.”
“Midgardians burn under the sun?”
“Mhm. Skin gets all red and peels off, and if you get burned bad enough, it can get you sick. I’m guessing Asgardians don’t have that problem.”
“We certainly do not.”
Thor was eager to check out the waves, though Peter was more hesitant to. That dip into the Hudson river awhile back did not leave the best impression on his psych about large bodies of water. He was able to look at the ocean without feeling too anxious, so maybe he’d try getting his toes wet later on? Until then, he had convinced Tony to help him build what he called the ultimate sand castle. Well, it started off as a castle, but turned into the Stark Tower. “Want me to grab some more wet sand, Mr Stark?”
“Sure, kiddo. Definitely need some of that if we’re going to get the top right.”
Peter stood up and did a flip over their structure to avoid messing up the sand around it, grabbing the little bucket that Happy had grabbed for them earlier whilst in the air. “Bit of a show off, huh?” He heard Tony shout, unable to resist smiling at the quip. He returned with the wet sand, waving to Pepper and Thor who were in the ocean, and adding a little more flare to his flip this time, resulting in an eye roll from Tony. They finished their little creation rather quickly after that, not messing with anything too much in fear that it’d collapse. “I think we did good here, Peter-man,” Tony gave him a light pat on the back and then ruffled a hand in his curls. “Now, I’m going to take a quick dip to cool down because I’m sweating bullets over here. Not all of us are impervious to heat, after all.”
“Hey, even I think it’s pretty warm out.”
“Yeah, and imagine how I feel if you’re toasty. You want to come with, or guard this tower too?”
“Um, I’ll come with.”
“You sure, kiddo?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”
The father-son duo waded through the water, Peter sticking rather close to his pseudo-father, and they were happily greeted by Thor. “Welcome, Stark and Stark’s son!” The god beamed. At this point, they barely corrected him on it. After all, was he really wrong?
“How’d your little project go?” Pepper asked.
“A perfect model, if I do say so myself.” Tony boasted.
“Well-”
“Peter, we used sand. I think that it’s pretty damn good.”
After messing around in the water for a bit, Peter noticed that he’d been softly humming a little tune- that baby shark children song that everyone still knows by heart. After hearing Thor address Tony by his last name a few times, a Looney-Toons esc light bulb flicked on in the spider’s head. Peter went around and behind Tony, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck and hopping onto his back. The water they were in wasn’t too deep and he was probably as heavy as an empty backpack, so there wasn’t any concern about Tony falling over. “Pete, what are you-?” Peter put his hands together and rested them on top of the man’s head, a huge smile plastered on his face.
“Tony...Shark! Do do do do do! Tony-Shark do do do do do! Tony-Shark!”
Pepper laughed.
Thor was confused.
Tony just sighed.
“You finally call me Tony, and this is what it is?” Though he tried to appear annoyed, Tony couldn’t help but grin at his kid.
“Sorry, Mr Stark,” Peter said in between laughs.
“Nuh-uh, no more ‘Mr Stark’. You said Tony before, you’re sticking with that.”
“Why is the spiderling calling you a shark, Stark?”
Peter was still trying to explain to Thor the joke as they drove back to the compound. He had fun with the tease for the rest of the day, but letting it go the following day and honestly forgetting about it. Tony, however, had not. A few weeks after the beach day, the two were practicing driving in the compound’s garage- mostly working on parallel parking, since that was what Peter was having the most difficulty with. “Okay kid, you have a clear path in between those to cars. Just like I showed you, remember?”
Pete slowly pulled towards the first car and turned the wheel, backing up into the spot before straightening himself out. It took awhile, but once he had done it, the kid was beaming.
“Did you see that? I did it! I finally did it!”
With a shit-eating grin, Tony began to hum his own little tune, “Peter… Park! Do do do do do.”
“Wait- no!”